


The Winding Vines

by ApolloWings



Series: Lathbora Viran [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3392444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApolloWings/pseuds/ApolloWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the Temple of Mythal, in which Inquisitor Isadora Lavellan chose to drink from the vir'abelassan. Spoilers (obviously), and a lot of angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winding Vines

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note: Translations of elvish are provided at the bottom, plus explanations and/or alternative viewpoints on meaning. Some of it is fairly complex, whereas others can be guessed from context.

Solas had barely spoken to her since the Temple of Mythal, terse with words, and ruthlessly efficient in battle with demons in a newly opened rift on their journey back to Skyhold. The fellow apostate was silent in their shared bedroll, his back turned to her until morning when she'd wake to find his arms holding her as if she might run into the night never to return.

Isadora was exhausted by it, shattered from the cracks that had formed in their loving cocoon that had been her world for so long. It showed on her face with dark circles that marred the portwine coloured vallaslin that branched and twisted into a raised pattern on her skin in veneration of their Gods - Mythal Herself.

She was exhausted too by the sudden hum of knowledge that dripped through the back of her mind and splattered like ink over what she knew, re-writing thoughts seamlessly with truth. Even then, she struggled with the weight of it, trying to marry up what she had known the day before with emerging glimpses of the shared knowledge from the Vir'abelasan that fought with her preconceived thoughts.

The Dalish elf was but thankful it hadn't suddenly turned her dumb with the wealth of it washing her ignorance away, instead taking root and growing with each time she slept. It was as if it branched like her own vallaslin through her mind.

But she was so very tired from it, her bones ached, brittle and sharp in her flesh, her back was stiff, and her eyes grew heavier with each passing day. And with worry that her body was failing, or reacting so strongly to the Well of Sorrows that she might simply crumble because her blood was not enough of Elvhenan, it was like another weight that dragged her down. Isadora was being crushed from inside, damning a pride that lead her to believe that she should be the owner of the knowledge from the Well. But who other than someone who studied the fragmented histories, magics, and language that was Elvhenan since she could babble her own name was more worthy to have such. Solas had refused so there had been little other choice.

"Ma sa'lath?" she whispered, leaning into the heavy door with a pause, nails running on the veneer with a soft whine that shuddered through her aching spine. She couldn't put it into words, the thoughts in her head, the conflict. It was just there, constant and oh so heavy. "Emma ir souveri, em'shiral lathbora viran."

The wood was soft against the pulse in her forehead as she leant it against the surface, breathing deeply. Why was it so hard to speak to the man she loved so deeply? Perhaps it was harder than anything at all. She knew a truth, and it was that she would no longer die a mortal death, not while the vir'abelasan sustained her, as it had those ancient elvhen. It was no age that could rob her life, but force. Had he known - presumed as such from the elvhen sentinels of the temple?

Isadora mustered up her courage, blood running hot and cold in quick flashes as she turned the cast iron handle in a shaking hand. "Solas? Are you there?"

His rotunda was darker than usual, the light from the library above shaded by a canopy and oily lantern that cast the fresco walls in grim expression, as if their eyes bore down on her, their stares gauging her soul for worth as an indentured sentinel to an absent Goddess. She bit the inside of her lip. "You called?" his voice called down from a high support where the bald elf sat cross legged, a paintbrush between his fingers as he furiously put detail into what could only have been a nightmare come to reality, the lines and thousands of eyes blurring into what felt like nothing more than malice and sly disgust in physical form. They almost glowed with the intensity of it that she was forced to look away.

The Dalish elf swallowed, trying to keep her voice calm, as even as it had been facing down demons and other cruel monsters. But Solas was no such thing. "You barely speak to me, I thought you'd gone mute, ma sa'lath."

Methodically, he stepped down the ladder, taking his brush and paints to his desk and putting them away in no order but precisely so in that non-order. She could see the frown that marred his lips, and wished to change it as she'd done so many times before with honeyed words and a gentle touch. Perhaps it could be so still... Isadora moved silently behind Solas, reaching tentatively toward him and holding his hip in one cold hand. She rested her cheek on his shoulder blade and let her magic seep through the barriers he held around himself. Those damned layers of poise and serenity until she felt a jagged core of anger and twisted sadness. She tried not to be shocked, but the core of his self that hated something, someone - while it had shrunk in their love, it was grown again in fertile reasoning for it. It was bitter to accept. "Stop. Tell me what went through your mind when you took it upon yourself to become a servant of Mythal. Every action done not of your own accord but for She?"

It was a broken cry as much as his voice too, was steady, his heartbeat even. They both tried to lie to themselves. She to say she had no regrets, and he that there was no hurt in his heart. "What could I say to make it right? Who would use the information to the best advantage, I want nothing more than to stop the ignorance of my people. I originally said we would leave the well alone but when Morrigan ran off in pursuit of it, simply for power, she more than proved she should not have it. You refused but did agree it needed to be used." she snorted, looking away and softly padding over to the table in the centre of the rotunda.

The Dalish First grazed the pads of her fingers along the grain of the wood. "And you regret it now?" he asked. Isadora shivered, biting the inside of her lip.

"I regret nothing, not truly." she whispered. "Even mistakes are there to teach us, let us try again but with more wisdom than we previously had."

Solas put a hand on her shoulder, she shuddered as if struck by a cool breeze. "You do-"

The apostate spun on the spot, finding herself trapped between the table and Solas, his arms falling to either side of her hips onto the edge of the table. "I do not. The past makes us who we are, I will never regret that."

"Even when it makes the world worse?" he challenged, jaw tightening.

"If I still breathe I can try to atone for the mistakes, but I shall never regret them." Isadora grit out. All of a sudden his lips were on hers, hot and needy. Desperately she latched onto his shoulders, drawing her fellow apostate closer until she could feel the outline of him through their robes. His hands settled at the small of her back, gradually skating up the contour of her distressed spine and round her ribs. The merest warmth and touch of his hands seemed to alleviate some modicum of the pain.

In pure instinct she sighed, head lolling back, dragging Solas with her until she was pressed into the table, him above her and laving sharp bites and kisses into her throat. Isadora groaned, capturing her bottom lip in her teeth. Her hands raked down his back, fingers slipping under his tunic. Warm skin that flexed taut beneath her touch met questing fingers. Isadora couldn't help but adore the rush of energy, of desire, and power she felt at the way his body reacted to hers. An impish grin smirk pulled at her lips.

He pulled back to look down at her, hair splaying over loose leaves of vellum and cheeks flush. He paused, as if taking in the whole of her, committing them together in that moment. "Bora'vhenan." Solas sighed.

Isadora startled, blinking as if all the air in her lungs was suddenly stolen. "What do you mean by that, Solas?" she sat up, forcing them apart and retreated back into the shadowy edges of the room, glaring through the silence. It was so cold, the loss of touch so painful that it left her reeling. He didn't dare share eye contact, an audible grit to his teeth and pop of his knuckles as his fist tightened the only sound he made. "Lost heart? How can you kiss me like that and say..." she choked a bit, voice betraying her.

"How could you have drunk from the vir'abelasan?" he blurted.

"Are you so spiteful? I was thinking of more than myself! You say so often how obtuse we Dalish are, but now someone who will not only be accepted as their own, but with respect as well, can bring them the knowledge they so sorely crave." the words slipped out. "You hate, you truly hate what I am, who I came from. I will not be sorry for it though. We tried in the least."

"Your trying was worth naught." Solas grit out, he shook himself, snorting angrily. "What is trying worth when faced with failure all the same? What happens when you try again and again only to fail at each attempt?"

"Better than acceptance!" a stream of words even she had no concept of meaning fell from her mouth. "Isala halani in hellathen! Isala ma sa'lath."

Solas sighed heavily, as if everything pent up had to be let go in an instant. The pinch between his brows softened, shoulders relaxing. "Garas, we need to talk."

The air itself chilled around her, and the ache that filled her flesh and bones dragged the elf down, struggling to find a decent gulp of breath. He walked faster and faster, until they were running through the old, cobwebbed maze beneath Skyhold, dust sticking to the bottom of her bare feet and breeches rippling. The magic in her veins was as angry and confused as she was, tangling like wiry hair in a brush and attaching around her heart. It thread through the whole of her, branching in each pulse point and throbbing furiously hot. "Where are we going?" she shouted ahead.

But no reply came as they carried on in the labyrinthine tunnels, thinning and widening with algae and moss that hung from cracks in the dark ceiling. The only light was magelight that ethereal shadows on grimy stone. The tunnel burst into a light clearing, wet with emerald ferns and uneven stones that lead to a still pool by the light that shone in from high above in a break of wall. What the room had once been was a guess, but it was more natural cavern with the dripping stalactites and fat stalagmites that lined the walls where water had trickled over hundreds of years. "I come here just to think. It's almost a world away from anywhere else." his voice seemed to ricochet slightly from the walls, as if it came from nobody but the room itself.

Isadora leaned into the crumbled frame that had once held a door, her breath catching in her throat. "It certainly is beautiful. But why are we here?"

Solas turned, beckoning her with a hand. "Ir abelas, da'vhenan. I need to tell you the truth."

The cavern was almost icy, and her skin prickled. While the fury still blistered away behind her conscious thoughts - curiosity stirred her into action. "Solas, what truth?" the silence stretched out sonorous and painful as she stepped on the damp stones, careful to find his hands in her own.

They'd fought before, it was a matter of contention always between regarding the Dalish. It was hardly the first or last time they would disagree on something, and they snapped back together quickly.

But never had it been so furious before, so deeply personal. "Ma sa'lath, you can tell me anything."

A brief torment crossed his features, and what had softened in sorrow grew stern. "Your vallaslin, the markings on your face."

"I am aware of them, yes." Isadora gently brushed the pads of her fingers on the raised ink and blood that marked her cheekbones. A nervous bubble of laughter escaped her lips feeling absurd. She barely thought of them except with a personal pride when she passed the Tevinter silver-backed glass mirrors. "What of them?"

Solas' eyes held so much sadness, and he gulped, blinking slowly. "They don't mean what you think, they... they are a remnant of when the elvhen were no better than the Tevinter Imperium. They're the markings of a slave."

It might have been better if she'd been physically struck. Isadora's mouth filled with bile that she swallowed bitterly as the thought flooded her mind, searching for a modicum of lie in the statement from her gleaned knowledge from the vir'abelasan. "We were... the slaves of Gods. Our own Gods. The vallaslin was not to venerate them, but because we were owned by them."

It was odd, tasting another's words spilling on her tongue as if they were her own. They were dry and flavourless compared to anything that spurred it to speak, even short utterances. "Exactly so." Solas said with a sigh, his hand coming up to meet her frozen one on her cheek, cupping it in warmth. "But if you like... I can remove them for you. I know a spell."

"The one that heals scars." she spoke with no passion, eyes cast downward but with no focus. The Dalish elf shook her head. "No... they might have once been the markings of a slave but one kindness of the Dalish is that the past was erased. A new path is struck where we change the meaning of even the ugly truth into one that I am proud to wear." Isadora looked up, meeting his stormy eyes with her own pale blue as if waiting for him to contradict to her.

They were, after all, another reason the Dalish were ignorant fools, twisting a mark of slavery into a mark of worship. But the retort never came, instead the edges of his lips curled happily, his warm fingers stroking over her cheek and up her ear in pure reverence. "You have never been so beautiful, emm'ara." his words were a hushed prayer from his lips.

And his kiss was soft, pouring love through the touch and like returning to a home that had never gone away. Inside her magical energy sung, she melted into the embrace, hale and whole for an exquisite moment. As they parted to breathe she bowed her head. "Ma'arlath."

She slipped on the stones under her feet, stumbling until he caught her by the elbows. She flushed darkly, trying to chuckle the slip off. Solas did not laugh alongside her though, letting her go and turning his head away. "I've wasted your time, I shan't take any more of it from you."

Isadora's brows furrowed. "Solas?" the meaning was lost on her. She saw his jaw tighten and the column of his throat bob as he swallowed thickly.

"I never thought I could have been tempted away from the Fade, not while the waking world was so dull. But you were so bright, you shone. I was wrong to ever hold you, I... Ar lasa mala revas. You are free of me, as you always should have been."

And it was exactly like being struck, as if Bull's mallet hit her ribs and each bone shattered into dusty fragments. Her blood emptied her veins. "Din ven." the sound escaped her like a hiss from a pair of empty bellows. And whether or not she was heard didn't matter, because he left her in the cavern all the same.

The water soaked up her breeches at some point after she'd fallen to her knees. And utterly wretched, she wandered wetly and near hysterical through a place she did not know, for a place she could never return to, and was too stubborn to ask for again.

Hours blended together until she was back into the familiarity of Skyhold, the tears dried from her face and legs merely damp. The sky was darker than the Void itself, but all the stars crossed the heavens in a milky, twisting pattern that almost called to the blood in her veins. Letters she'd never seen in them glimmered in her eyes the longer she stared, until ideas blossomed fully in the tangled mess of her mind.

She would carry on. There was no use in crying when there was a task at hand, and she was the Grand Inquisitor.

**Author's Note:**

> Vir'abelasan: Way/Our/Well of Sorrows - translation varies. "Because you know sometimes words have two meanings" - to quote Led Zeppelin. Vir and var are both attributed to the word 'our'
> 
> Ma sa'lath: My one love.
> 
> Emma ir souveri, em'shiral lathbora viran: I am so tired, I walk/journey the path to the place of lost love. Lathbora viran literally meaning "love lost our place"
> 
> Bora'vhenan: Lost heart
> 
> Isala halani in hellathen: I need help in/with this (noble) struggle.
> 
> Isala ma sa'lath: I need my one love.
> 
> Garas: Come.
> 
> Ir abelas: I'm sorry - literally "I am with sorrow"
> 
> Da'vhenan: little heart
> 
> Emm'ara: My desire
> 
> Ma'arlath: I love you
> 
> Din ven: Don't go
> 
> Many special thanks to go to ffdrake who kindly beta'd this piece into something readable.


End file.
